According to conventional practice, football linemen, both offensive and defensive, generally tape their hands to help reduce injuries. However, this taping is both time consuming and uneconimical because the tape is not reuseable. Furthermore, removing the tape is not pleasant whatsoever, because it sticks directly to the skin and must be pulled or torn off.
In addition, to the above drawbacks, hand taping is not generally effective for fully protecting the hand while permitting use of the hand, i.e., a tape job that is applied well enough to protect the hand also limits the flexibility of the hand and overly restricts use of the fingers and thumb. Such restrictions present a problem because they limit the linesman's ability to either ward off or restrict the progress of an opponent. Furthermore, even though a lineman does not often get an opportunity to handle a football, he must have freedom of movement of the hands on those few occasions where there is an opportunity to recover a fumble and the like.
There is presently available, a relatively little used alternative for hand taping. This alternative is in the form of a striking glove used in practise by boxers. Although, these striking gloves do allow for greater hand movement than a good tape job, they do not provide adequate protection and as such, have met with very limited success on the football field. They simply cover the back surface of the hand and barely the first knuckle of the fingers and thumb so that essentially the entirety of the fingers and all of the thumb, extend beyond the end of the glove where they are exposed to damage. In addition, with these boxing gloves, the thumb is totally freely moveable, independently of the fingers and therefore, very easily dislocated or broken. These finger tip boxer striking gloves are held on the hand by drawstrings which are pulled directly into tight contact with the player's wrist so that they are extremely uncomfortable and often cut off the circulation in the wrist, which can cause compression of the median nerve.
The football glove of the present invention has been designed to provide both the required protection and flexibility to the hands of a football player. The glove which is padded, includes both a wrist protecting portion and a hand protecting portion. The hand protecting portion is provided with finger and thumb pads which cover at least the first phalange of the fingers and thumb. This reduces the exposure of the fingers and thumb to damage and at the same time, allows adequate exposure for using the hands in either dealing with an opponent or grasping a free ball.
The thumb pad is connected to the finger pad by web means which limits movement of the thumb pad and helps to prevent serious dislocations to the thumb. Each of the finger and thumb pads is provided with individual elastic, downwardly hanging finger and thumb receptacles which again permit use of the fingers and thumb. Restraining means is provided to restrain excessive stretching of the elastic finger and thumb receptacles for purposes of reducing injuries to the fingers and thumbs.
The glove is provided with a plurality of transverse flexible joints along its length to permit flexing of the overall glove. It additionally includes securing means at both the hand protecting portion and the wrist protecting portion to secure the glove in position.
This securing means is in a form which is comfortable to the user and will not cut off circulation to the hands.